RK Narayan

Malgudi is a fictitious small town in India created by R.K. Narayan. It forms the setting for most of Narayan's works. Starting with his first novel, Swami and Friends, all but one of his fifteen novels and most of his short stories take place here.

In the words of R.K. Narayan, "Malgudi is a town "habited by timeless characters who could be living anywhere in the world" and is located on the banks of river Sarayu and surrounded by the Mempi Hills."

Narayan's fiction rarely addresses political issues or high philosophy. He writes with grace and humor, about a fictional town Malgudi and its inhabitants; and their little lives. Narayan is a classic teller of tales; an enduring appeal springs from his canvas where common men and women of all times and places are joined in their commonality.

[1]

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Iyer Narayanswamy stood shortened to R.K.Narayan, on Graham Greene's advice. Narayan lived till ninety-five, writing for more than fifty years, and publishing till he was eighty seven. He wrote fifteen novels, five volumes of short stories, a number of travelogues and collection of non-fiction, English translation of Indian epics, and the memoirs "My Days". Yet it is neither the copiousness of output, nor currency of content - or the lack of either - that gives Narayan his place among the finest story-tellers of modern English.

He weaved a world existing nowhere, but striking a chord of perfect reality with readers across the English reading peoples. His books appeal in a quiet, reassuring way and have a remained popular over many decades. His writing is also part of literature coursework in some American universities.

Narayan evokes a diction of unusual freshness and rare ingenuity with the English literary idiom.

[2]

Narayan was born at the beginning of the twentieth century, on October 10, 1906 at Chennapatna, near Mysore in southern India. He was one among many siblings, his father a provincial head-master of much repute with the rod. Narayan studied at his father's school and maintained a diligent dislike for studies. The qualifier to the graduate course in Arts proved his nemesis; Narayan failed. In spite of sustained loathing, Physics and Chemistry had stood by him, but English betrayed. He much liked the subject and was already aspiring for a writerly life. But a compromise was never reached with the English pieces in his syllabus. Getting plucked fetched him a year of reprieve from classes; he promised his father he will try the test again.

Narayan started reading in earnest, the classics of English literature, and writing. He read out his pieces to a close band of friends, and after priming the audience with coffee and snacks, asked for their opinion. Such reviews were laudatory, "brilliant" being the unanimous word. His father had his own qualms about institutional education, and encouraged Narayan in literary pursuits.

The next year's entrance examination was cleared, Narayan served his time in the university and graduated. Though the repugnance to studies never recouped he queued for the Master of Arts course, viewing the degree as an expedient in job hunting. While walking up the university stairs to submit the form, a friend warned of the privations of M.A. Narayan turned around and came down the steps in a hurry, never to try their ascent again.

He resolved to write for his living and write in English. Reporting for defunct journals, freelancing here and there and similar "literary" odd jobs catered more to the spirits than pockets. He kept on writing and submitting. A few lyrical pieces went to publishers in England, and returned in due or undue time, along with "%u2026cold, callous rejection slips, impersonal and mocking".

[3]

Narayan's first published work was the review of a book titled "Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England". He is rather cynical about it and writes, "A most unattractive book, but I struggled through its pages and wrote a brief note on it, and though not paid for, it afforded me the thrill of seeing my words in print for the first time." To better arrange meetings of the proverbial ends, Narayan took up teaching at a government school, and left the job within two days.

In the autumn of 1930, on a sudden spurt of inspiration, writing of his first novel "Swami and Friends" started. It was as if a window had opened, and through it Narayan saw a little town and its rail station, the Mempi Forest and the Nallapa's Grove, the Albert Mission school, Market Road, the River Sarayu. Its inhabitants appeared, and Malgudi was born.

Malgudi is the setting of nearly all of Narayan's work. It is described as being somewhere in southern India. Malgudi has some elements of Hardy's Wessex and perhaps can be pinned on a map as exactly Wodehouse's Blandings has recently been done. But Malgudi is different from either. Its moorings in geography - and also history - seem never an issue; Narayan's space-time bubble bounces in absolute ether.

"Swami and Friends" was completed and sent to publishers. It repeatedly returned. Narayan dispatched it yet another time and gave the return address as one of his friend's in London. He wrote to the friend requesting the manuscript be tied to a brick and thrown into the Thames if it came back. It did.

But the friend took it to his acquaintance Graham Greene, who was already an established author. Narayan received a telegram soon thereafter, "Novel taken. Graham Greene responsible."

"Swami and Friends" was published in October 1935. Greene's suggestion for pruning his never-ending name to something more succinct was readily taken by Narayan.

Thus began Narayan's friendship with Greene; it continued till the latter's death in 1991. They corresponded often but had met only once, in 1964. This association is surprising in its depth and sincerity, given the two's widely varying oeuvres.

[4]

"Swami and Friends" had a few enthusiastic reviews but was lost in the deluge of current bestsellers. Throughout his career, Narayan changed publishers often, sometimes publishers changed him; he even dabbled in self-publishing for some of his books.

Narayan's renown as a writer came slowly, almost with a touch of diffidence. He never had the trappings of a high profile author, and stayed scrupulously shy of literary lunches and book signing binges. He was most at home near his characters, somewhere in south India.

Malgudi is a land of fantasy, not as in a dream, colored and brilliant; but the reverie of relaxed awakening, a contemplation of commonness. Life there is reduced, or elevated, to the lowest common denominator of living, which remains the same in nearly all places and times. Small men, smaller means, touched at times by the cares of a larger world, but unruffled, still moving on. The characters yearn for fame and money and virtue and those "real" things, but their longings stand tempered by a subtle sense of limitation, almost comic.

The narrator of one the novels is an archetypal Malgudian: "We were about twenty unrelated families in Kabir Street, each having inherited a huge rambling house stretching from the street to the river and back. %u2026. so comfortably placed, (we) were mainly occupied in eating, breeding, celebrating festivals, spending the afternoons in a prolonged siesta on the pyol, and playing cards all evening. %u2026.. This sort of existence did not appeal to me. I liked to be active, had dreams of becoming a journalist. %u2026. I noticed a beggar woman one day, at the Market Gate, with Siamese twins, and persuaded my friend Jayaraj, photographer and framer of pictures at the Market Arch, to take a picture of the woman, wrote a report on it and mailed it to the first paper which caught my attention at the Town Hall reading room; that was my starting point as a journalist. Thereafter I got into the habit of visiting the Town Hall library regularly to see if my report appeared in print."

Narayan's irony dissembles in humor, and the reader realizes only when hit,

' "Excuse me. I made a vow never to touch alcohol in my life, before my mother," said Chandran.

This affected Kailas profoundly. He remained solemn for a moment and said : "Then don't. Mother is a sacred object. It is a commodity whose value we don't realize as long as it is with us. One must lose it to know what a precious possession it is. If I had my mother I should have studied in a college and become a respectable person. You wouldn't find me here. After this where do you think I'm going ?"

"I don't know."

"To the house of a prostitute."

He remained reflective for a moment and said with a sigh:

"As long as my mother lived she said every minute, 'Do this don't do that.' And I remained a good son to her. The moment she died I changed. It is a rare commodity, sir. Mother is a rare commodity." '

Nature remains an abounding presence in the semi-suburban life of Malgudi. Narayan's observation and his felicity with words reveal in passages such as, "It was April. The summer sun shone like a ruthless arc lamp - and all the water in the well evaporated and the road dust became bleached and weightless and flew about like flour spraying off the grinding wheels." Long solitary walks remained a lifelong passion; the world percolated his every pore. "When the monsoon broke out, one could watch dark mountainous clouds mustering, edged with lightning; these would develop awesome pyrotechnics. In June, drizzle and sunshine alternating, leaving gold mohur, flame of the forest, and jacaranda in bloom along the avenues. In July and August the never-ending downpour, grey leaden skies, and damp air blowing."
The rest at http://calitreview.com/2007/03/26/the-life-of-rk-narayan/